Creation of municipalities and institutional conflicts in Brazil

Abstract

The Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988 attribute to the Federated states to define the criteria for the creation of new municipalities. Therefore, the states’ rules facilitate the creation of these political units, which contributed to the dismembering intensification throughout the country. Because of this, it was approved the Constitutional Amendment 15/1996 which prevented municipalities from being created until new Federal regulations, and those created without the legal regulation were judicially contested. This work intends to uncover how municipalities could be created and installed since then, without legal support, and for what reasons the Brazilian judiciary maintained its existence. Controversial The establishment of these municipalities reveals political disputes, power relations, and conceptions of State that lead to reflection on the meaning of the territorial division in Brazil.

Keywords

• municipal emancipation
• territorial division
• politic disputes
• legality